Ted Stevens lost his bid to be the first convicted felon to be elected to the US Senate when Mark Begich found himself with a 3,274 vote lead with only 2,500 votes to be counted. That bumps the Democratic caucus (what with Joe Effing Lieberman's return to grace) up to 58, with Al Franken's recount and Jim Martin's runoff left undecided. Nate Silver liked Franken's chances a week ago, and barring any new evidence, I'll keep my hopes high for 59.

If Martin makes it 60, though, holy crap. And let me tell you, I would love to see Saxby Chambliss go down in flames. That it might give the Democrats 60 seats is gravy--the real beauty would be to see the pondscum who dodged Vietnam with the grace of a prima donna and who morphed triple-amputee Max Cleland into Osama Bin Laden lose in his re-election campaign, and disappear into the political void he so richly deserves.